10th September

Remember the mirror systems:

Machiavelli in the Dialogues mirrors Louis Bonaparte (Napoleon III). The motives of the former are deceptive. In this work of fiction, he takes power for the sake of power. The motives of the latter? Pending further reading, one can only speculate. Furthermore, the Dialogue argues from the lower echelons of society.

The Protocols then mirrors the mirror system in the Dialogue. It argues from a position related to the upper echelons of society.

The Jewish council corresponds to Machiavelli. The aristocracy and the autocrat plays the same role in Protocols as Napoleon III plays in context of the Dialogue. The Jewish council however is not precisely a perverted version of the aristocracy.

The motives of the council are oddly blended. Most of the times we just hear their plan for gaining world dominance. Often they directly explain the goal as being the wellbeing of mankind.

The motives of the aristocracy? According to the words of the Jewish narrator, they are based on duty, unselfishness and integrity.

It makes for a very odd reading. I often stop and wonder what is going on with all the reversals and deforming mirrors.

11th September

There are two important misunderstandings about revolution.

The first misunderstanding:

The revolutionary is up against men with guns.

Correction: That is secondary. The revolutionary is fighting the easiness and self-assured manner in which the reigning ruling elite explains the world and throws out your explanation of justice, rights, reasonability.

Revolution is always a struggle against a version of reality that has established itself.

The guns come into play only to ensure their interpretation remains unscathed. In fact, the ruling class is not authoritarian.

It is merely cognisant of the workings of the mechanics of the world, and under an obligation to protect the cogs in the machine from harm. This insight binds the class by duty.

The second misunderstanding:

Through dogged perseverance, an opposition will topple the reigning explanation and replace it.

Not so. Most likely there will be several strands of resistance. That means that if the previous elite falls, there will be a power vacuum manifesting itself in a strange interregnum with no absolute mythology. There is no overarching narrative which can always be consulted to acquire the proper interpretation of a matter.

Instead civil war consumes the land. That state ends with the emergence of a new super-narrative, sometimes by internal forces (one of the factions wins) sometimes by external forces, such as when the world interferes and installs a puppet regime bound to a foreign mythos such as liberalism.

When that happens, a new transition period begins. That period will feel equally strange. Slowly the prevailing explanation of reality will settle in and take over as a new kind of sanity. New maps will be drawn with new compass roses embedded into them. One oratory explanation will begin to sound invalidated for no reason at all, while another will no longer have to justify itself. Its tenets have become logic. The former will appear to be a ruptured balloon, a sunken ship.

It will be upheld by a steadily declining circle of adherents. If it remains aggressive, it will be outlawed.

This act – outlawing – is in itself a potent symbol. A government that holds to power to outlaw something will implicitly point to itself as the representative of justice and order. Minds will take notice of that and slowly come to accept the new authority.

And the wheel of political fortune is ready to take another turn.

12th September

It is sobering to see liberalism and socialism lumped together for a change. Those old arch enemies are mere popular fads when viewed from an autocratic viewpoint.

And for sure, it is a strange journey we as a civilisation has undergone since the emancipation of our citizens. When we took rights and laws into our own hands, we also took it upon ourselves to understand ourselves which is a necessary prerequisite for the humane repression which government is and always will be.

Did we do a better job than the autocratic societies? The question soars high above the rather pedestrian Montesquieuean question of which institutional design has the widest roof to cover us all. Did we manage to see us as an alien would see us? As a god would see us, with a five dimensional gaze that penetrates to our very deepest core?

It is slightly ingenious, what Matvei has done with the Protocols.

“So, all you liberals and socialists hate autocracy, because it reminds you that you are kept animals without the ability to think for yourselves? Okay. Then here is a book where everything you hate us saying about taking your freedom away for your own good is now being said by those we all hate: The Jews.”

It is a recurrent theme in the interplay between the Dialogue and the Protocols that Joly is attacking an autocrat. Golovinski’s beloved Tzar is thus humorously being accused of being deceitful, an allegation he will have to respond to by cleansing the name of autocracy and dragging liberalism through the mud.

13th September

Dialogue 13

● Measures against conspiracies. ● Handle revolutionary secret societies: Instigate one himself and lead it. ● Peace through bloodshed. ● Mild against orderly speech, harsh against subversive speech. ● Limit size and scope of gatherings. ● Use existing laws to ensure public order. ● Magistrates of the court: ● Retire when old. ● Break the esprit de corps existing between judges to make them support the efforts of the leader.

Machiavelli knows how to ride the waves of success swiftly and decisively. While his despot has emerged as the victor of the civil war, he quickly and adeptly normalises his power grab by erecting a reality around them.

Previously he addressed pockets of resistance. The turn has come to lodges and other fomenters of revolution.

Conspiracies and secret societies

This latter statement is a clever way of normalising brutality. Especially since we have all gotten accustomed to extrajudicial killings of foreign and domestic citizens in the age of terror. The glove is off. We know now that we are no longer protected from the wrath of government - which represents the wrath of the electorate, i.e. your neighbour.

We cower and shrink back from obviously “stupid” acts such as yelling “bomb!” in an airport. The government’s sense of humour does not stretch very far. Fine of course, but the example reveals how the government is entrenched in our very basic behaviour, in our muscular system.

Insofar as it pertains to juvenile acts of defiance, good. But the same fear of contradicting the police when we catch them in the act of a brutal arrest? Solzhenitsyn recounted how in the early days of Bolshevik police oppression an arrest at broad daylight would sometimes be averted by people gathering around and shouting at them. The very matter of justice – who had the unwritten law on their side – had not yet solidified. A crowd, angered by what they spontaneously consider an injustice could scare away couple of young henchman whose convictions were still weak. Years later, the arrests happened at night in people’s homes, and the masses had lost their nerve for resistance too.

What a delightful exchange of words!

There is not a fibre that runs through Machiavelli’s theory that have not found its way to the executives of today. Everyone from beggars to sidelined politicians stand and watch as secret organisations penetrate political movements with ease.

The reason is obviously that all governments must defend against public disorder, which happens to coincide with protecting its own monopoly on force. [See “because all governments” in this Dialogue later]. And who can say that a given political movement would not someday erupt into violence? The “nip it in the bud” approach is not unique to officials. Often it is shared with the populace.

Machiavelli seems to have little respect for brotherhoods and lodges and their members. He has a cunning plan for using that to his advantage. Why not harness their secret network for his own use?

Full points for the idea!

Movements: The swallower of individualism

Montesquieu of course objects to the rather weak plan.

Machiavelli’s reply opens up a vault of dirty laundry which is extremely interesting.

Two contentious claims are being made.

A polemical nature is not sufficient for revolution:

The conversation here is about members of “subversive” country clubs inhabited by armchair revolutionaries. Parenthetically one should add that nobody would call Lenin or Trotsky “souls of sheep”, so somewhere there is a threshold.

Even so, the statement is slightly provocative. It rightfully discerns between two character traits: The self-propelled and the community driven individual, and Machiavelli postulates that members of Masonic lodges and other organisations consists in the latter, making them suitable targets for repurposing.

Post-revolutionary societies can end up being more repressive:

That is the problem with revolution: Many result in even worse despotisms. The force required to break through the concrete from below is immense, and only the most hardened and ruthless will survive.

Even though many revolutions try to establish controlling bodies that have democratic distribution of authority, the attempt is strenuous at best and often only survives briefly.

The special fate ascribed to individualism here is worth thinking about. Golovinski brings the topic up again later in the Protocols.

Any attempt to counter the industrial revolution’s most fatal consequences – slums, child workers and poverty – will take the forms of unions and parties organising around a philosophy that focusses on the greater good. The more militant and successful, the more homogeneous and disciplined.

Another aside: One risks conflating weak individuality with military discipline (soldiers can have all sorts of political convictions and still do their job). Joly’s Machiavelli merely says that however structured, they will need a leader.

An individual on the world stage is inconceivable today. That doesn’t mean we are sheep as he says. Why should one foolishly waste a life in an inherently social world trying to accomplish things, while ignoring society? If that bit of common sense is sheepish, then we are individuals choosing to act like sheep. But we can break ranks.

The price of democracy is agreement, which means you can only move people by entangling them in your own thoughts. For sure it takes a degree of individualism to veer away from the flocking course, but you must be “one of us” to be admitted to the level of discourse necessary to see your ideas spread.

With that in mind, isn’t Machiavelli’s words an accurate description of the main dilemma?

Right to peaceably assemble

Machiavelli – always sympathetic to the people’s needs – of course allows people to assemble as many as they wanted, but only if they refrain from politics. As long as they are not deceptively engaged in subversive actions against the society they live in, they can have all the fun they want.

Elastic terms are always useful:

Fuzzy definitions combined with executive departments that have ample room for adjudicating on their own volition is a good way to scare people, who by the way have no ombudsman to complain to. Having your life’s future completely depending on a not too bright deputy whose lawful prerogative it is to make a personal judgment on the validity of your actions under the auspices of some some obscure political philosophy? You’re mincemeat.

Same countermeasures for all governments

Now comes the best part.

This is core to political problem: We all habitually draw a line between “mere criminals” and political dissidents being harassed or persecuted. That line is blurrier than that. A criminal who acts with no personal gain, is that a conscientious objector? Anyone building in the small a community functioning out of different principles than the one they exist within, is that a criminal?

It is the judiciary who must interpret the laws and establish principles of right that are bullet proof, so we do not let our emotions interfere. Doing that without being political and bending the law is proving to be difficult. They are quickly reined in, both in Joly’s dystopia and in our present political sphere.

The old magistrates

Two problems present themselves, when changing society fundamentally.

(1) Old judges and magistrates who still judge according to the old system

(2) A strong culture between judges that can foster an independent line of thinking.

The challenge is to break those habits and that culture in true Machiavellian fashion. That is, a politically pragmatic fashion. Means to ends.

Again the notion resurfaces that groups have tremendous resilience in their thought patterns. Individuals are not the primary problem at all in a despotism.

14th September

Would it have made a difference if the feudal top had not let themselves indulge in antisemitism? Even worse, in some countries, they even played on it to rile people up.

Seeing how ingrained the animosity towards Jews are in the everyday vernacular across Europe and centuries is heart wrenching. If modern day Israel fear any regression towards a position in which they are less than superior compared to their surroundings, it is understandable.

The consequences of that conclusion go far beyond the state of Israel. In essence, it seems to mean that either we slaughter our neighbours or at least maintain military superiority, or we end up as cattle offloaded to concentration camps.

15th September

Today’s Protocol is rife with the author’s own political convictions. At some point he even seems to be thinking out loud how to solve practical problems in an autocratic society.

The tone is more violently oppressive, but so is the tone in the matching Dialogue.

Protocol 15

Brutal indeed, like the Machiavellian Machiavelli (who is “good to children”, a wonderful statement that makes Montesquieu shudder)

That quip about “a whole century” is interesting. It serves little other purpose than to sound like it was words really spoken by a Jewish conspirator. Maybe it is Golovinski having done some thinking about how long it takes for a population to change their character.

Death penalties abound. The narrator takes on the same demonic countenance as the despot in the Dialogue.

In understanding the phenomenon of The Protocols, it helps to view them as a joke. They make more sense that way. As a propaganda piece, it makes most sense if its value resides in how the recipient gets the joke while at the same time gets to hate the Jews a little more.

As a conspiracy theory, it is useless within the Russian borders.

I still cannot imagine Golovinski himself subscribe to the notion of a Jewish world conspiracy.

In fact, I think I want to take a break from the Protocols and read up on more accessible sources for those theories. I lack a dimension in my analysis.

So far the narrator promotes a value system glorifying power. And yet, even here we see remnants of cross pollination with the aristocratic creed. The ruling class rules because of its native strength and integrity, which are also the very same characteristics necessary for protecting a country against attack from the outside as well as internal deterioration as a consequence of demoralisation.

How Germany received this book is becoming a very interesting question. Another reason to take a break and read up on some kind of illuminating theory.

Within Russian borders the arch-conservative overtones could hardly have been missed. How the Russians received the text is a very different and very interesting question.

Masonic lodges

Very close to the Dialogue’s exquisite plan for infiltrating the “rebel forces”, Golovinski adds very little.

Every time the conversation falls upon human character traits, Golovinski whinnies like a happy mare and sets off over the meadows.

Of course the Jews as masters conspirators fits the bill for Golovinski’s project. It is only natural that they should take the lead in any such project. And of course the deceit will be double. And of course the mob is unable to ignore its desire for immediate satisfaction for any longer period of, say, ten days.

Are the fruits individualism or collectivism?

The Dialogue says about those cafe-revolutionaries that “Their dream is the absorption of individuals into a symbolic unity”. It was Machiavelli being cynical about the psychological makeover of people meeting in secret clubs to discuss political action.

Both The Dialogue and The Protocols blends in the question of collectivism. Both observe the change in disposition an individual experience when taking up a cause. Our vocabulary changes and hence our thinking patterns. This is taken to mean a loss of individualism.

How that is different from the aristocracy where the individual is subordinate to the family is a peculiarly interesting question.

Nature creates real living individuals which are brainwashed by movements. The counter argument is that in that case nobody could ever opt out of a movement once they have synchronised with its ideology. People do that constantly. They shop around with, well, empty heads looking for new and exciting causes.

The implicit critique misses the central issue: The world learned quickly that only through self-effacement and solidarity can the masses accomplish anything.

Indeed, that do take the form of loss of individuality.

The notion that we are all born individuals and die believers in symbolic freedom (I think we can safely assume it it Golovinski himself speaking through the “Jewish” narrator) is a critique that is more subtle than it looks. What is symbolic about the achievements of liberalism or socialism? “Equality” is of course somewhat abstract, except in concrete situations, where lack of equality is exceedingly real.

On the theme of antisemitism, once again I note how the Jew is made to express feelings and thoughts that appear oddly aristocratic. Perhaps the two (a fictitious Jewish master race taking over from an aristocratic master race with nostalgic dreams) coalesces in a shared contempt for the “ideologically naive” mob.

Anyone who compulsory categorises the Protocols as purely antisemitic bile needs to read and explain exactly these paragraphs here.

The following are even more ambivalent.

Sacrifices

Sacrifices made by “us” and “them” is a recurrent theme in this Protocol.

I have assembled an overview of quotes across the pages …

Gentiles (commoners) happily sacrifice the greater common good for their own vanity. The Jews (aristocracy) are willing to sacrifice themselves in the struggle to gain world domination, as well as everybody who stands in their way.

In the end, the benevolent regime of the Jews (!) will result in far fewer deaths than those of the various Gentile governments through the ages.

Confused? That is because it doesn’t make sense if one tries to bend it to fit a specific interpretation. Golovinski is cutting newspaper articles together, that is all.

A very strange section

More propositions from the eternal twilight between antisemitic Jew-mythology and aristocratic aggrandisement.

The phrase “brain of the gentile”, when read by people having anti-Jewish prejudices themselves (or attributing those to others during research), is certain to spawn dislike toward Jews (or imagine dislike, in case of the researcher).

It is a riddle to me how people can overlook that the mentality coincides with the attitude of a ruling class towards a lower class.

One accusation is that we are unable to invent anything but “material things”. What is the conclusion? That “nature herself meant us to lead and rule the world”. By doing so, they will “show the benevolence of our rule”

What exactly is the accusation here? Without a doubt, if this is meant as an accusation against the Jews, it will be applicable with equal force agains the aristocracy.

Indeed, it confuses me. I am more than halfway through the Protocols and still I fail to understand exactly what the purpose was of writing it.

A simple life code that all can grasp.

Machiavelli in the Dialogue is unusually strict and callous in Dialogue 13, and Golovinski happily follows suit.

And yet, underneath all the brazen talk about punishment, the old ideals still oozes out underneath the shut door. When he says “all kinds of abuse of power will cease”, it means an end to corruption.

I think he means it.

Clemency vs exemplary punishment. The ethical regime?

Once again Golovinski changes the direction of Joly’s talk on old judges and their team spirit which must be broken. Machiavelli says that strengthened by their esprit de corps, they will judge according to the old ways. Young judges should comply with the new winds of change and judge to maintain stability.

Golovinski seems to write like he believes in the necessity of severe punishment. He seems to elevate the matter into a question of ending corruption for the sake of personal gain. The aristocratic code of honour must be taken out of the closet again and polished. I think this part of the text rings strangely honest and genuine.

That was not what Machiavelli had in mind at all! Golovinski made a virtue of a necessity and opted to spread the conservative gospel. The “neglect” he talks about could the act of showing leniency. But in the former sentence, there is no doubt that the crime mentioned is abuse of power. That is decidedly un-Machiavellian, especially since it seems like a genuine concern.

In the following, the crime of forsaking one’s duties for personal gain is frowned upon.

Clemency in your private life is okay, but in an official capacity, it sends a bad signal. Right out of the conservative playbook. But Jewish?

The whole section may be an elaboration on the theme in the Dialogue that public order matters more than anything, and the judges should adjudicate in a manner that shows their allegiance to the king’s orders: “it will be necessary for [public] order that the judges are always on the side of power.”

The old magistrates again

Finally the Protocols visit the topic of circulating the judges to secure their loyalty.

One interpretation of the harshness could be that Golovinski knows how provocative it may sound in our liberal ears and make us hate the Jews.

Another interpretation is that preservation of order hinges on harsh punishments.

I suspect the latter, frankly. The sentences where he swoons over past glory and theocratic order reveals something of himself. At least that is how I see it.

How a judge can adjudicate “liberally” is a bit harder to say. Presumably by showing mercy or social awareness. I can’t help imagining all ideologies overlapping in time being realisations of an archetypal generational conflict. Established parents who firmly believes in stern discipline and flagrant youngsters who yearn for uprooting everything and starting over.

Imagine an era where liberalism is the young, unruly, corroding attitude that breaks down good habits and demoralises the adolescents. Well, that was a hundred years ago or more.

Duty and discipline and reverence for the law. Being tough on crime but reserving respect for even the transgressor (a soldier dying on the battlefield of the administration). All integrated in the value system of the aristocratic conservative.

Rooting out the liberal evils

Joly really hit a nerve when he wrote about magistrates. I predict a similar outburst of advice will come if and when the Dialogue talks of education. Judges and teachers, the artisans shaping the future generations.

A love-love relationship - once upon a time

Returning to his dearest theme, the love between a king and his subjects, he depicts the entirely emotional bond between them.

The subjugation of the judges must be seen in this light, the establishment of a purely emotional state of cohesion.

Taming the human nature for the common good.

More state of nature talk …

Enough with the antisemitism, unless the goal was to portray the Jew as the ultimate Orthodox benevolent race of demigods.

That sentence about the total amount of deaths from under liberalism versus the “aristocracy” says something about Golovinski at least.

I have seen the same sentiment expressed by modern authors of textbooks of international relations. Who knows if there is something to it.

16th September

I am astonished at the fact that anybody could read the Protocols and not see them for what they were underneath all their primitive tacked-on antisemitism.

My amazement have at this point grown to a mad bewilderment. I need relief for the burning question of what people did read into the Protocols.

PARADISE LOST